


I'll Say Goodnight But It's Never Goodbye

by sapphire2309



Series: season seven [1]
Category: White Collar
Genre: (temporary paralysis + shortness of breath + vomiting), Gen, Spoilers for 6x06, detailed description of the effects of puffer fish toxin, presumed dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-25 06:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6184798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire2309/pseuds/sapphire2309
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> Faking his death wasn't as easy as he thought it'd be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Say Goodnight But It's Never Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Goodnight New York by Vienna Teng. For Challenge #12 - Weekly Quick Fic #5 - at writerverse, for the prompts “He died whilst faking his own death” (“Gavin & Stacey”) and The Vault. Episode tag for 6x06. I'm putting this down for the 'drugged' square on my hc_bingo card, even thought it doesn't quite fit.  
> This fic is essentially me hurting Neal in order to deal with whatever residual rage the finale left in me. Hopefully, I'll treat him better next time. And I don't think I properly dealt with the shortness of breath. Oops. Sorry.  
> I almost rewatched the ep to write this, but decided that it was better for my sanity if I just went over the dialogues using [springfieldspringfield](http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/episode_scripts.php?tv-show=white-collar). And then I ended up rewatching anyway. Sigh. And I have more tags in my head, though I'm not entirely sure that I'll manage to get them on paper, they hurt so much.  
> These words were hard to pull out, and they're not the best they could be, but they're words, so.  
> Also, my fixation with the present tense continues.  
>  **Disclaimer:** White Collar is Jeff Eastin's brainchild. Not mine.

He'd hoped that Peter wouldn't make it, that he'd just see him in an ambulance before it screeched away. But Peter's there, using his badge to silence the paramedic so he can get to Neal.

"We're gonna get you out of this," Peter says, with something resembling faith.

Neal closes his eyes. He knows exactly what's going to happen, and it's not what Peter's hoping for. But he can't lie to Peter, can't pretend that he's going to make it, not even now. Especially not now. "I don't think so." He opens his eyes, tries to look at Peter, but the pain in Peter's eyes is already too much to bear, he has to shut his eyes again, give himself a break. But he can't go this entire conversation with his eyes shut, so he opens them again, forces himself to witness the pain he's inflicting.

"Don't say that." Peter says.

But he has to. He has to do everything he can to make this a clean break, even if it's something as painful as denying Peter whatever hope he can hold on to for the next few hours. He changes tack, tries to form what he thinks he'd like as his last words to Peter. "You're the only one who saw the good in me." He ignores Peter's attempt to stop him, carries on. "You're my best friend." He's blinking far too much now, but those brief moments of darkness help him hold Peter's gaze. Peter deserves that much.

It's only after he's been loaded onto the ambulance that he wants to recall the words he said. What right does he have to deny Peter that hope? He's leaving them all anyhow, he may not ever return, why shouldn't he have left Peter what hope he could?

He doesn't know what the right answer is, what the right thing to do was.

Peter would know. But Peter would never be in this position to begin with.

-:-

  
He thought, he really thought, that he'd be able to play this through without knowing all the consequences of what he's done. He thought that his entire job entailed lying unconscious on a gurney as the final piece of his plan clicked into place.

How wrong he was.

It turns out that puffer fish toxin can paralyse him and leave him lucid at the same time. It turns out that he isn't just lying there, he's trying to breathe as much as he can, without moving at all. It turns out that he's too exhausted to maintain the tight control over himself that he so desperately needs.

Puffer fish toxin is a cruel, cruel mistress.

-:-

  
He'd been warned, for whatever it was worth, before Peter and Mozzie came in to look at him. His eyes had been closed, he'd been zipped into a body bag and left to lay there, finish off the con.

That warning wasn't worth the words that had been spent on it. Nothing could have prepared him for this.

Mozzie's voice is the first he hears. Denial. Conspiracy theories. JFK, the two caskets. He's heard it before, but never in such a shaky voice, never with such little conviction.

Then Peter, like the crack of a whip. _He's gone._

Mozzie again, more denial but even less conviction.

Peter's calm voice would help Neal, if not for the words, and the layers of pain underneath them. Neal can't help but think that Peter's holding it together for Moz.

Mozzie's faith in his abilities hurts all the more because it's true, he is sliding past this, leaving them behind with their grief. He could tell them, he could stop this right now, but there's far too much resting on this con. Peter and Mozzie's lives, for one. That gives him the energy he needs to hold on. He's doing this for them. As hard as it is to believe right now, he's doing this for them.

 _Not this time._ Peter's words hurt all the more for the gentle tone they're said in.

Mozzie's sobs fray his already limited control. But he only really thinks he'll break form when Mozzie lays a hand on his chest. He _wants_ to break form, in whatever small way he can, a twitch, a shift. He wants to use what little control he still has over his muscles to tell them that he's alive, he _needs_ to just stop this, _stop this_ , Mozzie's sobs are too painful to hear.

He can't do this anymore. He tries to twitch, to move something, _anything_ , but suddenly, he feels like he's been dragged underwater, or thrown into a soundless, airless vault, or both. Too late, too late, _too late_ , he finally loses consciousness, slips away from the world, but he carries the pain with him, he's sure of that.

-:-

  
He doesn't die.

He could have, they say, they have said, again and again and again. Neal was willing to play those odds, fairly confident that he'd come out on top again.

When he wakes up, he really wishes he hadn't made it.

He can move normally again (too late, too late, _too late_ ). Not that it's doing him much good. He's mostly been reaching for vomit bags and throwing up into them. Or crying.

He's finally stopped, now. The tear tracks have dried on his cheeks, but he doesn't bother with brushing them away, he'll probably start up again in a little while. Remembering Peter's words, or Mozzie's denial, or his sobs, oh god, he's at it again.

The tears are starting to feel frivolous. He's cried more in the past few hours than he thought himself capable of. The last thing that hit him this hard is Kate's death. Before that, the revelation of his mother's lies.

But the thing about this time is that he's entirely responsible for it. No one else. Just him.

He's exhausted. No, weary. Grief is weighing heavy on his heart, along with the knowledge that he's inflicted far more pain than he's bearing, he really doesn't deserve to feel this wretched.

He wonders if he's created the recipe for his own destruction along with this plan to fake his death. He wonders how he's going to carry on living, even far away from New York. He really doesn't know how he's going to survive whatever time he has to spend away from New York (he won't make it longer than he has to, he couldn't, not anymore).

He closes his eyes and leans further into the pillows. He's going to Paris in a few days, once he's fully recovered. Paris may be the only thing that could make him feel better now.

-:-

  
The flight to Paris is far too long. He has too much time to think, too much time to dwell on everyone he's left behind, on _how_ he'd left them behind.

Peter had finally decided to trust him instead of investigating him. Neal has no doubt that, if nothing else, Peter knew that he was planning something. And yet, he'd chosen to believe in him, he'd chosen not to investigate beyond a few pointed questions and the usual due diligence.

He'd left Mozzie out of the plan to con the Panthers till the last possible minute, and Mozzie was still okay with it.

And he thanked them by running away again.

He's not going to cry again. He probably can't. He's shed so many tears that there's likely none left, just a gaping hollow inside him. But he can't deal with this horrid feeling either. Not when he's left alone with it.

He leans back and dreams of returning to New York. Dreams of visiting old haunts again, drinking coffee, walking the streets.

(He avoids all the thoughts he possibly can of the people he left behind. He doesn't know if they'll embrace him again or throw him out. He doesn't want to imagine.)

He'll go back. He knows that. When he'll do it is the only question.

-:-

  
Landing in Paris is like falling into the arms of an old lover. So familiar, and yet, because of the time they spent apart, so different. He spends his first day walking through as much of the city as he can manage, eating so much bread and cheese that he doesn't need meals, drinking so much wine that he's surprised he's still somewhat steady by the end of the day.

He reaches the apartment he's renting at some godforsaken hour of night and collapses onto the bed, knowing full well that neither is this a sustainable way of life, nor is it healthy. He needs to _do_ something, or he'll probably go crazy.

Funny. He'd thought that cutting all the strings was what he needed, but it turns out that he doesn't mind being a puppet, not as much as he did before. Not when the only way he can be free involves knowing that everyone he loves is grieving him right now.

He can't do anything tonight. Tonight, he needs to sleep off this headache that is probably the beginning of a nasty hangover. But tomorrow, he'll decide what he's going to do with this new life he's got himself in Paris.

He has to stay here, has to keep up the con. Or it will all have been for nothing.


End file.
